Fishing - TR: Smallie drift

Yesterday I did my first pontoon boat drift of the season. My friend Mike
met me at the bridge by the river and we discussed how we would take out
of the river as the spot we used last year is gone, the farmer having
reclaimed the spot after the construction crews replacing the bridge
departed. We decided on a spot about 50 yards downstream where we'd have
to do a bit of work to get up the bank onto a small trail, but it looked
doable. While standing there looking at it I spotted 3 smallies in 6" of
water right off shore. And smiled.

Headed up to the launch, loaded the pontoons and shoved off. I was
soaked, the temp was pushing 90 even though it was only 8AM. Off the
first set of rocks I missed a hit and then blasted down into the first
pool. Took a couple of passes on the usual spots and got nothing. Mike
had pulled up on a sand bar to switch to a popper so I pulled up and
stopped. While there I suggested that he cast a popper over by a rock and
he caught a small fish. There were bass rising to Dark Hendricksons, lime
sallies and the occasional caddis. In fact there was a hell of a hatch
going on all day.

Once we pushed off that bar the fishing was outstanding. The fish were
hanging right off the bank, as they often do, but given it's the pre-
spawn they were exceptionally aggressive.

I was using my green frog poppers, made from soft closed cell foam and
they preferred those to Mike's store bought option so I gave him one. I
had an experimental pair, in an olive color with me and I decided to put
one on. First cast when the popper hit the water a smallie about 17" shot
straight out of the water, missing the popper and crashed back in. I had
set on the "take" and quickly threw the popper back to the same spot, one
twitch and he was on.

The fishing was fabulous. When we stopped for lunch, about 1/2 way down
the drift Mike looked at me and said "I never thought I'd say this, but I
could leave now, I'm tired of fishing and catching fish". All I could do
was grin.

As we were coming down the banks towards the bridge we could hear the
distant rumble of thunder. When the wind began acting a bit spooky I
decided it was time to take out and we rowed the last 1/2 mile down and
beached the pontoons. Climbed the bank and ran up to the launch, grabbed
my truck and went back to get the gear. The take out sucked, the bank was
a cut bank, of sand, and it really wanted to collapse under weight, Mike
pushed the pontoons up to me and I pulled them out of the way, he climbed
up and we carried them to the trailer one at a time, swarmed by hungry
mosquitos. Once the pontoons were on the trailer (this year I'm using a
neighbor's snowmobile trailer to avoid constructing/deconstructing the
pontoons at the river) it began to rain. Gear stowed, pontoons strapped
down we left the river at 4:30PM as the skies turned black and the
lightning and thunder lit up the day.

Between the two of us we caught somewhere between 100-120 fish. Mostly
smallies, though there are some fekn gigantic chubs in those waters that
will take poppers, the average fish was 15-16" and strong as all hell.
The biggest fish were in the 18-20" range.

It ended up being a bad day for the popper selection, I lost 1/2 dozen of
my newest poppers and as replacements I'm going to make the olive poppers
as they outfished everything else we tried. I used my sage 7wt 9'6" RP
for the first time in years, the downside being that my 7wt lines are on
an Orvis magnalite multiplying reel that I really don't care for. That
rod is a nice powerful rod but the extra 6" makes getting a fiestly bass
into a net slightly more challenging. Plus it's heavier than the 5wt I
usually use and today I can feel it in my right arm. Since a buddy of
mine sent me a Hardy Marquis #7 as a gift (old one that he's had for 20
years or so) I might just load that with a 7wt floater and try the rod
again sometime.

Here's a few pics of Mike. Didn't take many, the fish were too
cooperative.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...c/DCP_0629.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...c/DCP_0630.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...c/DCP_0631.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...c/DCP_0632.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...c/DCP_0633.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...c/DCP_0634.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...c/DCP_0635.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...c/DCP_0636.jpg

Fly